The term “cold contacting technology” subsumes the group of inseparable non-positive and positive electrical contacts. All variants share the common feature that the electrical contact is established solely by press-fitting or by clamping the joining partners.
Press-in connections for the direct contacting of circuit boards are used in numerous products. The multitude of variants ranges from single press-in pins in on-board computers to edge connectors with up to several hundred press-in pins in control units. If a large number of press-in pins is to be pressed in, there will be greater demands on the accuracy of the clearances and the orientation of the press-in pins among each other, the contacting openings in the circuit board as well as the positioning of the press-in pins prior to and during the compression process in relation to the contacting openings.
The single press-in pins are typically pressed into a circuit carrier. This requires high forces (approximately 100-300 Newton per pin depending on the number of pins), high accuracy as well as off-limit zones in order to minimize damage to adjacent structures. Ultrasonic augmentation when the pins are pressed into the circuit board results in an improvement of the above-mentioned points.
From German Published Patent Application No. 42 42 837 A1, a method is known for pressing metallic elements into circuit boards.